While a Judge for the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, Sonia Sotomayor decided two cases dealing with the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Age discrimination cases comprise a healthy percentage of employment discrimination claims. It’s predicted that there will be an increase in these cases as baby boomers move into their 60s in record numbers. It’s a certainty that, if confirmed, Sotomayor will be involved in age discrimination cases on the U.S. Supreme Court. Let’s see what she’s already done on this subject as a district court judge.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Doremus & Company., 921 F. Supp. (SDNY 1998)
A 58-year-old account executive with 24 years of service was fired six months after he was transferred to a lower-level position with a promise of reinstatement to his former position if the opportunity arose. Both the transfer and termination occurred, according to the employer, because of a sharp contraction in business resulting in a 50% reduction in the employer’s income (which included the loss of one of its biggest clients, for which the 58-year-old account executive was responsible). Other layoffs, terminations, and cost-cutting measures were also taken by the employer.

During this period of business contraction, the employer transferred, hired, or promoted to the position of account executive five people. Their ages were 34, 25, 39, 39, and 25. The employer argued that during this same period, there were other employees both within the protected age group and outside the protected age group who were terminated. The employer contended that if Sotomayor looked at the overall picture of the layoffs and terminations, she should conclude that no age discrimination had occurred and that the account executive’s case should be dismissed without a trial.

Sotomayor had little trouble denying the employer’s request. Noting that it was only necessary for an employee to prove that age was one of the “motivating factors” for his termination to win an ADEA case, Sotomayor found that a reasonable jury could side with the account executive in this case, when the employer hired five considerably younger account executives while firing one who was 58-years-old. She also noted that, during this time, the average age of account executives had dropped from 49.6 years to 38.8 years. These were genuine issues of fact that precluded the dismissal of this case without a trial.

Lanahan v. Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, 5 F. Supp. 2d (SDNY 1998)
A 55-year-old agency manager was fired after 20 years of service. If you now jump to the conclusion that Judge Sotomayor reached the same conclusion she reached in the above Doremus case, you’d be wrong.

According to the employer, the agency manager was fired because of steadily declining performance and the failure to meet performance targets for recruiting, sales, and expenses. The agency manager argued the employer’s stated reason was a pretext for age discrimination. He said the employer had a “corporate philosophy of 55 and out.” He said that statistical evidence demonstrated the systematic dismissal of older workers. His problem was that there was no evidence (other than his assertion) of such a corporate philosophy, and the data on which he relied didn’t show the systematic dismissal of employees because of age.

What was different in this case as compared to the Doremus case is that there weren’t specific younger employees the agency manager could point to as being treated more favorably than he was treated. The agency manager believed he was discriminated against because of his age; he just couldn’t prove it.

The agency manager also claimed in this case that his employer had violated the Employment Retirement and Income Security Act (ERISA) by firing him to prevent his entitlement to greater pension benefits. Again, however, other than the agency manager’s assertions, there was no proof to support his claim in this regard. In fact, if anything, the employer had bent over backwards to make sure that the agency manager reached the age of 55 before being terminated so that he would receive the larger amount of pension benefits that kicked in at age 55.

Sotomayor’s district court decisions on age discrimination
It’s hard to find anything wrong with either of these decisions. Sotomayor ruled in favor of the employee in one case and in favor of the employer in the other. She refused to grant a motion for summary judgment in one case because there were genuinie issues of fact that should be presented to a jury. She granted a motion for summary judgment in the second case becaue there weren’t genuine issues of fact.

We’ll next look at Judge Sotomayor’s decisions on cases involving national origin discrimination.